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It’s happened again. The shifting winds of German styling, which have been spinning weather vanes atop design studios from BMW to Mercedes-Benz, have finally descended on Volkswagen. And as those winds die down in Wolfsburg, the resulting scenario is difficult to comprehend.

Months ago, the former Jetta possessed a modest but legitimate Euro-something look: a spare Teutonic honesty you couldn’t put your finger on, but it became evident when light swept over its unadorned flanks.

All that’s been blown away. Volkswagen’s traditional look has been swept up by a flamboyant new vocabulary for its fifth generation, an event we should’ve seen coming in the wind-whipped shape of last year’s big Phaeton.

Stop for a moment to examine the images on these pages–particularly those of the new Jetta’s sides, rear, and taillights. What looks German to you?

While the new Jetta’s commendable mug is as fiery as its predecessor’s was milquetoast, the Japanese sheetmetal that follows it cries out Toyota and even–gulp–Corolla. Toyota must be smiling that its little sedan has influenced the looks of anything, but how will it sit with Wolfsburg aficionados, the spargel-und-hefeweizen crowd who keep the lights on at tuner shops like Neuspeed and HPA?

We placed a call to Jay Chen of European Car magazine, a sister publication that covers the Continent’s more provocative offerings.

“We’re wondering, too,” he said. “Tuners are enthusiastic about the new Golf’s looks, but people seem cool toward the Jetta.”

Nestled aft of our test GL’s chrome-washed prow is a new 150-horsepower, 2.5-liter transverse-mounted five-cylinder engine that shares bore spacings, but not much else, with Ingolstadt’s old fives. This is the Jetta’s new base unit replacing the earlier, long-serving, and now pensioned-off 2.0-liter four. While it delivers–and this is being charitable–sprightlier acceleration (9.4 seconds to 60 mph) than previously, be happy to consider the turbocharged alternatives, like the interesting 1.9-liter diesel and, later on, the 200-horsepower, 2.0-liter direct-injection four-cylinder.

The five suffices to move the Jetta around, but it’s relentlessly grumpy about doing so. Our test car was sticky on throttle tip-in, causing pause-then-jerk-away starts however velvetly the right foot probed, and, once wound to its early-to-bed 5800-rpm redline, you’ll be tempted to put a bullet through the firewall to still the racket. At redline, the five sings an unearthly moan, sounding like a duet of hoarse-throated ghosts.

Things brighten as the power travels to the transmission. Autonomously stirring the gears is a six-speed automatic that reliably ladles up the right cog, though under braking background downshifts can sometimes be felt as a mild tug. In manumatic mode, the ratio pick is yours, with reasonably quick gear-grabs in the offing. Even better will be the machine-gun-fast DSG system due later in the year, exclusive to the turbo 2.0-liter and turbodiesel engines.

True to form, the steering and suspension hardware sparkle. No sedan at this price offers a comparable blend of good weighting, on-center precision, and off-center linearity–eye-opening in light of its electric assist (and here GM had nearly convinced us that the technology was a disastrous idea). In normal driving, the Jetta handles with patented European crispness and patters over road blemishes, almost playing with the pavement, as if it were a skilled fighter sparring with a speed bag. At the track, the Jetta’s new multilink rear suspension impressed tester Chris Walton, though steering into a slide mid-slalom (what a life), the Jetta’s chassis sometimes replied with an overly snappy return to line.

More casual circumstances allow inspection of the driver’s environs, a surrounding not only rich in materials and textures, but also darned well conceived. The main gauges are saucer-big, the dash functionally organized, the switchery for sound and ventilation systems sized for real human fingers to manipulate. (An amusing exception is the side-mirror adjustor, which turns clockwise to select the left mirror, counterclockwise for the right.)

Smiles go upside down, however, when getting into the back seat. Although Volkswagen has scaled up rear room, the results aren’t upscaled enough. Or maybe it’s just space misallocation: With the rear seatback folded (expanding the already shipping-container-size trunk), it’s actually more comfortable to stretch out in the cargo hold than compress yourself into the back seat. What’s more important? The groceries in the trunk or Granddad in the back seat?

Don’t get us wrong, the Jetta’s a seductive piece, the cheapest ticket into the genuine German-sedan owner’s club; replete with core perks like certified scalpel handling and a businesslike driver’s setting. But the diluted German/Asian looks and economy-class rear seating are baked-in deficits that may take the upcoming 200-horsepower turbo to completely overlook.

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